


He is softened, and blushes for joy

by kyprian



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyprian/pseuds/kyprian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thetis' son meets his destiny on the sea shore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He is softened, and blushes for joy

Thetis sent her daughter to us when she turned nine; a lovely girl, slender as an almond tree. Her hair was darker than her mother’s, reddish-gold in hue. We hid her true name from her (and what mother would name her child for grief?) that we might protect her; we clothed her in white wool and taught her to spin.

Before she came to us, she had run wild, an untamed weed; beautiful in blossom, perhaps, but requiring the gentle, guiding hands of the master gardener to bring her from bloom to fruitful womanhood. Her father had entrusted her education to his herb-masters and star-watchers, and she had learned only the wisdom of men in her youth; she has forgotten how to blush, to laugh, to be soft. The calluses on her feet will, no doubt, wear away with time and care.

We made certain of the girl’s virginity before admitting her to maiden chambers. She learns a softened gait and a modest speech; for the first time in her life, her locks are combed and plaited, her hair is a crown.

We did these things for our foster-daughter out of love. Thetis feared that because she was her mother, men might look to her proud glance to find there the prowess of Zeus, the arm of Poseidon, the fleet feet of Hermes. We took her into our arms to teach the modesty of Demeter, the softness of Aphrodite, Persephone’s maiden grace.

She begged us to be allowed to wield arms, to carry a bow on her shoulders, to never marry. At her mother’s request, we denied her these things, and brought her up, secluded. In the company of women, she learned to tame her willfulness and lust.

We kept her from the harbor and the shore.

  


***

  


When he is sixteen, Achilles sneaks out of the house. A ship has come from Ithaca. He has heard the girls giggling about the stropping sailors, cracking bawdy jokes between themselves (always careful, though, they know full well that they would be whipped if any man overheard their talk of penises and plum-rich arseholes). As far as he can tell, it’s the usual merchant ship, laden with cloth and bronze – spears and swords for the men; mirrors and girdles for the women. Some of Lykomedes’ household are puttering among the wares, offering bargain prices for coarse woolen cloth and cheap jewelry.

Achilles veils his red-gold braids -- he knows that his hair would give him away if he were to uncover his head – and walks down to the docks, where sailors are smiling at servant women, carefully pretending that the well-bred women do not exist. In his fine white dress and veil, the sailors don’t give him a passing glance.

The boy lingers among the cloth and jewels for a little while, pretending to choose some bauble for himself. Tall spears fill the corner of his vision. He longs to pick one up, feel its heft in his arm, remember what it was like to throw a spear, to hold a sword, to wrestle in the mud with Chiron, before collapsing exhausted in the summer sun.

  


A man of about forty is sitting by the weapons, wrapped in a grey cloak. He briefly glances at Achilles, then dismisses him as unimportant, scenery, a girl to be ignored. Achilles is relieved. At least he won’t have to explain why he can’t, even after seven years, tear himself away from the weapons; the gnawing feeling that he should have had another life. His right hand reaches towards a spear. Breasts shift uncomfortably beneath his dress.

“What do you want?” the grey-clad man asks.

“Oh,” Achilles stammers. He has never been caught with weapons, not for years, not since his mother delivered him as a hostage to Lykomedes. “I … well, I was just wondering how strong a man had to be to wield such a mighty weapon.” He tries a nervous giggle. By all the gods, please let this man think that he is just some overawed girl looking for a display of machismo.

The man holds Achilles’ gaze. “What is your name?”

“Pyrrha.” The response is automatic. Achilles has been forbidden his own name for so many years that sometimes he forgets that it was ever his.

“Well, Pyrrha,” the man says, slowly, as though he is digesting some great thought, “a very strong man might never wield this spear well. A very weak one, however, might find a way, with skill and cunning, to turn weakness into a weapon, and such a man could be mighty with this spear.”

Achilles isn’t sure if the man is flirting with him. In some ways, his voice and his eyes remind him of Chiron, in the days before he started to bleed, before his mother decided that he would be a girl.

“I am Odysseus,” the grey-cloaked man says.

“Like the king of Ithaca?”

Odysseus smiles. “Yes, exactly like the king of Ithaca. It’s good to know they don’t fill maidens’ heads with fluff in Skyros.”

Achilles’ brow creases. “Well … if you’re the king of Ithaca, what are you doing here? You haven’t been received by the court; you’re down on the docks selling cheap cloth. It doesn’t make sense.”

Odysseus’ smile has widened; he looks very much like a cat that has cornered a mouse and can now play it for as long as he likes. “We’re here because of an oracle,” he says. “The bitch at Delphi told us that we would find Thetis’ son here, and that he would be the greatest fighter the Argives have ever seen. She also told us that he would be the first damn person to touch a spear once we came ashore. So that’s a hecatomb wasted.”

  


That afternoon, the Ithacan ship lifts her anchor and beats to windward, heading East.

Wrapping a linen bandage around his chest, Achilles prays.

 _“Mother, I have obeyed thee, though thy commands were hard to bear; too obedient have I been: now they demand me, and I go to the Trojan war and the Argolic fleet.”_


End file.
